Interesting acquisition by the Padres bringing in Busan’s Baek Cha-seung. I don’t think Baek ever got a proper chance in Seattle.  Toward the end of  2006 he was flirting with the  No. 5 spot in the rotation, but then the went and  signed Jeff Weaver for 2007. He was put in the rotation in late April, and got 11 regular starts,  going 3-3 with an unimpressive 5.74 ERA. He  sent back down, returning  in September. At the end of that month he pitched his best game of the year, holding Cleveland to seven hits and one run over six innings.  I wrote about that game  here.

Unfortunately for him the offseason acquisitions of Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva assured that he wouldn’t be a starter come 2008. Out of options the team tried to move him to the bullpen, but the  results have not been pretty  – his walks are way up, strikeouts down, 6 HRs in 30 innings,  an ERA of 5.40 and an FIP of 5.90.

He turns 29 this week and it’s make or break time Baek. He’s a four pitch pitcher, mixing a fastball and slider with a pretty decent changeup. I looked as his pitch usage on Fangraphs  and it looks like he’s throwing the slider quite a bit more this year  (34.3% to 2007’s 24.7%). This could be because he’s been working in relief, or he may just have lost some confidence in his fastball — which he’s still consistently throwing around 90-91.

As RJ Anderson from Beyond the Boxscore points out the reason the Pads made this deal, and the reason this may work out for the Padres, is that Baek is a flyball pitcher moving into Petco. Baek’s  FB% usually hovers around the 50% mark, putting him amongst the league leaders in that category. As everyone knows Petco is quite flyball friendly, so Baek’s game is going into a good situation. Anderson  also points out that the Padres defensive efficiency rating of .696 is quite a bit better than Seattle’s (.683).

As I said Baek’s walks are way up this year —  3.9 per game. But last year that figure was down to 1.72 in 73.1 innings. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. My hunch is that he hasn’t been a happy camper. This trade probably needed to happen, both for Baek and the Mariners.

But don’t take my word for it. Let’s check out what Paul DePodesta had to say on his blog:

We’ve been keeping tabs on Baek dating back to late last year, as we do with all players who will be out of minor league options in the coming season. In this particular case, we also knew (as did everyone) that the Mariners had a very deep pitching staff, and that Baek would be fighting for a spot on the team. When the Mariners acquired Bedard, we inquired about Baek again, but the Mariners really wanted to keep him. Fortunately, we saw a lot of Baek during spring training (we share a spring training complex with the Mariners in Peoria, AZ), and our scout, Bill Bryk, really liked him and recommended that we continue our attempts to acquire him. Nevertheless, we couldn’t work out a deal, and Baek opened the season on Seattle’s roster.

We believe Baek is a very good strike-thrower with all of his pitches (Fastball, Curveball, Slider, and Change), which keeps hitters off balance and makes him effective. Our scouts also believe that he pitched a little better than his ERA would indicate from last year. According to the FIP statistic, a defense-independant statistic developed by Tom Tango and utilized by The Hardball Times, Baek had been getting better in each of his past three ML seasons (2004-2007), which goes hand-in-hand with our scouting evaluations.

I don’t want to gaurentee success for Baek in San Diego, but I like this deal for the Padres. At the very least Baek will get one last chance to show what he can do.